Eyes – Natural adventures

7192. Lucky Lane (7)

Mind 49, Lucky Lane, Bristol, September 2025

What a stunning piece by Mind 49 painted at the Lucky Lane paint jam a couple of weekends ago. The theme for the mini-festival, organised by the Bristol Mural Collective, was luck, although I’m not sure how Mind 49’s piece plays into this, if at all.

The obscured portrait, a feature of Mind 49’s work, shows the eyes of a person peering through what appears to be a floral balaclava or headdress. It is an incredibly powerful piece, which is not only painted beautifully, but also conveys a raft of possible emotions – grief? contempt? sadness? resignation? stoicism? – there is certainly something downbeat about it, and yet it is surrounded with beautiful flowers. Lots to think about in this amazing portrait piece.

6530. Sparke Evans Park (102)

Scrapyardspec, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, November 2024

I am seeing an awful lot more crazy character pieces by Scrapyardspec appearing on the streets of Bristol, which, as I said in a previous post, leads me to believe that he might have moved somewhere more local to the city. I am finding new piece almost on a weekly basis now.

This is quite a large specimen from Scrapyardspec on the long wall at Sparke Evans Park, squeezed in between writers. The monster character has all the features of a piece by the artist, that is to say, wibbly wobbly lines, crazy eyes, in this case three of them, and a tong hanging out from a goofy toothy mouth. More to come from Scrapyardspec soon.

6421. Upfest 2024 (53)

Perspicere, Upfest 24, The Tobaccco Factory, Bristol, September 2024

Sometimes street art takes on a new and vibrant form, and even when you think you’ve seen it all, an artist like Perspicere will come along and blow your mind. I have been aware of Perspicere for a couple of years, but managed to encounter him at work twice this year, both at Upfest and at the Cheltenham Paint Festival.

Perspicere works with thread that is suspended between rows of hooks along each side of the frame. By threading the line across from one hook to another again and again in a very specific order he builds up a layer of thread that has depth and colour, tricking the eyes. He uses only four colours of thread (red, blue, yellow and white) and the whole thing is worked out using a computer programme, and he has to follow the directions meticulously. The end result is mind-boggling, especially on the scale that he works to.

I think that you have to have a special kind of patience and determination to do this kind of thing, but perhaps it is a rather mindful exercise and great for zoning out. A fine addition to the spectrum of art at this year’s Upfest.

6013. River Avon (61)

Another Mote monster to add to the ever-growing back-catalogue. Mote’s work tends to go through themed phases where he will produce a sting of monsters with a particular design idea, such as monster birds and monster fish and recently, monsters with one white eye and another heavily lidded eye.

Because Mote themes his work in these ‘periods’, it can be possible to date his work to within say a six month time-frame. This monster is clean and tidy with a solid purple fill and pleasing ‘ribbon’ of green running through. And those teeth!

6004. Cattle Market Road (17)

Mote, Cattle Market Road, Bristol, April 2024

Mote is an artist who emerged as a Bristol-based artist in the spring of 2022 and has been developing his craft steadily since then. His early pieces were relatively simple constructions with solid primary colours and thick solid lines, but he has quickly developed his style which is altogether more sophisticated while sticking to his monster characters.

This monster at the back of the Temple Meads development site is carrying a theme that Mote recently appears to be playing with which is to have the eyes appearing quite differently, one wide open, the other heavily lidded. this asymmetry certainly lends itself to the monster-like appearance of the character. There are just so many good pieces by Mote out there.

5996. Cumberland Basin

Fishlock, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

This is a bright and fun piece from Katie Fishlock was painted at the Bristol Mural Collective paint jam back in April. I have featured her work a few times in Natural Adventures, and have several more of her pieces in my archives, but perhaps don’t ‘big her up’ as much as she deserves.

Her art studio creative designs translate very well onto walls, which provide a great showcase for her design work. If you’d like to know more about Katie Fishlock, her biography on her website is well worth a read. The portrait piece here plays on the confusion of double sets of eyes, which the brain quickly dismisses and accepts as a normal face, a device used a lot in street art. I rather like the bold statement and way it is presented. Note to self – dig out more of her work from the archive.

5614. River Avon (52)

A graffiti writer and artist who regularly pops up on Natural Adventures, Pl8ohas recently had a bit of a purple patch, painting several pieces in the space of a month or two. This is a large burner on the cycle path that runs along the river Avon between Sparke Evans Park and Temple Meads station.

This large (larger than it looks), bold and humorous piece is a great example of Pl8o’s work, always well executed and fun to look at. The letters/number he uses are so easy on the eye, and here he has added an extra ‘o’ to create an excellent pair of eyes, a mechanism used by artists with ‘oo’ letters to great effect, such as Boogie and Scooj (hah!). Over the years, Pl8o’s contribution has not been insignificant as evidenced by this gallery of his work.

5438. Greenbank (89)

I really don’t know very much about Piewaster. I know that he has painted a few pieces in Bristol over the years, but never enough for me to become familiar with his work or identity. This is a recent piece from the hoardings at Greenbank.

One of the elements that I think might be common to his work is the eyes that decorate the piece. I know of at least two other pieces (probably unpublished on Natural Adventures) by Piewaster and they had the same eyes. The letters spell out WASTER in two style/colour forms, one a hollow blue line WSE, and the other solid grey letters ATR. The whole thing is beautifully painted and is the work of a talented artist.

4943. Cumberland Basin

Acesartworld, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2022

It is curious that one of the most arresting pieces of 2022, never actually made it onto the pages of Natural Adventures. I know that I delayed publishing the amazing piece at the time because I was unsure about the artist. However, as I know to my cost, the risk of delaying posting is that pieces get overlooked and eventually disappear under the weight of newer pieces landing in my image folders.

This is by Acesartworld, and is quite unlike much of his other work. What I particularly like about this (robot/alien?) headshot is the way the burning orange pupils of the character’s eyes have projected light onto eye surrounds and cheeks. There is a lot of depth and texture here, provided by some clever shading. I have other pieces by the artist that also haven’t been published, and will need to dig them out.

4534. Cumberland Basin

When you are familiar with the street art scene in a place, it is amazing how quickly you notice something slightly out of the ordinary, a new artist for example, and how that piece immediately fires up one’s curiosity. This was one of those pieces. I knew the second I saw it that it was not by a Bristol artist, but rather annoyingly I had no clues who the artist might be – it turns out that one of my fellow street art photographers/chroniclers had a bit of luck and unintentionally discovered the pairing that collaborated to create this striking piece.

Ansley Randall and Britt, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2022

The piece is one of those Upfest ‘spill over’ pieces that are a real bonus for Bristolians, where we get to see free art on our streets beyond the confines of Bedminster. Both Ansley Randall and Britt (paints a lot) were in Bristol for Upfest, and both had travelled from America, which gives you some indication of the draw of the festival.

The eyes are by Britt and the design and patterning by Ansley Randall. The overall effect is superb, and this really is a rather special piece. I don’t know if these two artists have collaborated before, or whether they hooked up at Upfest and gave it a go, but however the piece came about, I am pleased that they did it, and they chose a great wall to decorate too. Added benefits of Upfest keeping us all happy.

	paulh121 on 7350. Hillgrove Street (9…
	Bill Bisgood on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…

	paulh121 on 7350. Hillgrove Street (9…
	Bill Bisgood on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: